Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-04-02
THE CLOVEN HOOP.

The two Mormon papers are opposed
to the organization of Chamber Of Com
merce, or Board of Trade In this city.
Our morning Mormon contemporary in
a long editorial attempts to throw cold
water on the scheme, while the
church organ proper, in one of its
usual loaded editorial sermons, abso-
lutely denounces a Board of Trade as a
political and anti-Mormon movement.
Our Mormon morning contemporary has
a sufficient sense of shame to gloss over
its action, but the church organ proper,
the inspired mouthpiece of Church and
State, makes no such attempt. 1t
glories in its work and displays the
cloven hoof in all of its natural and re-
voting deformity. In thus OPP
posing the best interests of Salt
Lake City; in thus attempting
to set back the hands of progress for time
indefinite in thus voicing narrow secta-
rianism; in thus illustrating the tenets OF
fanaticism, and the dogmas of supersti-
ton, the Mormon papers are but the
echoes of the words of their masters.
They are the oracles through which the
rulers and elders of the Tabernacle
speak to the congregations. The Church
wants no business boom in Salt
Lake. The growth and prosperity
of Salt Lake is fatal to the Mormon
Church. 1t shrinks beneath the sun of
progress, and draws its breath heavy in
the air of popular prosperity. A busi-
ness boom for Salt Lake must be guarded
against by all of the bucklers of Church
and State. 1t must be cast down, and
trampled to death by the feet of the con-
gregations. The formation of a Board
of Trade is one of the great
est impulses that can be given
to the business interests of the city.
1t would organize the present business
impetus; it would consolidate the various
business forces now so active, into solid
and irresistible array it would proclaim
to the world of traffic and commerce-to
the capitalists of the East and of the
West-that Salt Lake was as giant
aroused from his lethargy; that the
golden hour was here, and would
be coined into wealth for the city, and for
Utah; it would not only invite capital it
would compel its attendance; it would
force immigration, and write on the
scroll of the future in living letters that
within the next decade Utah would be
great and glorious, and Salt Lake City
would be her metropolis. But this
means Gentle money and Gentle popu-
lation. 1t means physical freedom
and mental emancipation. 1t means
that Utah shall even be as her sister
commonwealth of the greatest republic
the sun of heaven ever smiled upon. 1t
means the ingress of liberty, and the
exit of despotism. 1t means in short the
downfall, complete and irrevocable, Of
Church and State And therefore, a
Board of Trade must be fought.
Fanaticism and superstition are in
voked The Church must defend its
own, and to do this the business interests
of Salt Lake and the promise of Utah
must be paralyzed. But we cannot be-
lieve that this is to be. Salt Lake has
scores upon scores of Mormon business
men, who are fair and liberal minded /;
who recognize the hope of the hour, and
realize that fortune, full handed
and earnest, is knocking at their
doors. To these fair and liberal
minded Mormon men of business; to
these merchants, of keen instinct in
their calling, THE DEMOCRAT confidently
appeals. Let the dead past bury the
dead Let unity and concord be the
watchwords of business. Let not its
men of Salt Lake smite each other. The
car of progress has entered upon its on
ward course. Let the shoulders of all be
pressed to the wheel.